Short Wiscon roundup and THE ANNOUNCEMENT
First up, BAD GRAMMAR THEATER is June 20th! http://www.badgrammartheater.com. Excitement.
Now that that's been made clear, I went to Wiscon for the first time this past weekend. It was quite a thing. It's been a long time since I had quite that kind of "four days feels like a month" little kid feeling. I'm not well equipped for a complete recap, but here's a few notes.
*Wiscon website is here: http://www.wiscon.info. It is the world's largest/only feminist science fiction convention (focusing mostly on books but touching on other media too), and in practice its focus spreads relentlessly like an invasive vine of justice and truth to other gender and social justice issues. It attracts a really diverse group of people, and mostly does a pretty great job of creating an environment where everyone can get to know and learn from each other. Folks make adjustments and talk through misunderstandings and try to focus on common ground without getting on each other's nerves too badly (and I know gave and took plenty in that respect over the 72 hours I was there). It's cool to see.
*Yeah, sometimes people spent fifteen minutes arguing over whether "ally" should be a noun or a verb, and what kind of a verb it should be. And lots of people put a lot of faith in the power of complaining on the internet to change the world. Prepare yourself ahead of time and it's nothing you can't deal with.
*Putting the cart before the horse a little in the name of clarifying my state of mind a little bit, THE ANNOUNCEMENT. At the end of June, I'm quitting my job to write full time. Part-time education-related activities will hopefully pay my rent and rice-and-beans-fees for the near future, but the focus will be on writing. Part of my decision to go to the convention was to scout things out and equip myself for my great adventure. Much was learned. Specifically:
*I suck at Wiscon. It's cool, I'll get better. I spent too much money on food and lodging and transportation, showed up and left earlier than was productive, and generally could have gamed the system more effectively. And next time I will.
*I suck at conventions, generally. Again, this is positive knowledge that I'm happy about. One possibility that I had in mind before I went to Wiscon was that this would be the final nail in the coffin of me deciding not to go to stuff like this anymore. I've been making a point of attending comic book, gaming, and general conventions in my area, partially to deal with the scary influx of free time from my new job and partially to scout them out. Mostly I haven't liked them all that much from a pure fun point of view, and was becoming skeptical about being able to leverage them to my ends professionally.
Going to Wiscon was helpful because it put me back in touch with my first principles when it comes to dealing with situations like this. One of my great accomplishments is that a lot of the people I associate with think of me as being only a little socially awkward. Travel back in time five, ten, fifteen years and the truth comes out like bugs from under a rock. I'm not a little clumsy. I've flat-out got pieces missing. You know how some people are better with faces and others are better with names? I'm bad enough with both that people regularly think I'm actively trying to insult them. I'm bad at approaching people, people aren't usually comfortable approaching me, I don't do unspoken cues and I often get the spoken ones wrong.
It's not a big deal. I don't have perfect pitch either, I'm good at plenty of things other people wish they could be good at. And I'm blessed with good friends despite everything, writer friends especially. I only feel bad when I forget that I have to approach things my way, which means sometimes ignoring what is good advice for other people. Randomly chatting folks up is not a good use of my time. Those friends I mentioned? They all either saw me read first and approached me because they thought I was good at what I was doing, or are people who I met because I ran a reading series. They thought I had something to offer. This carries over to most parts of my life- people that work closely with me at work tend to like me, and like me less and less the further removed the are from what I actually do. That's a big part of why I bothered to get good at doing anything in the first place. Friends I've made for other reasons have mostly been filtered out at this point in my life. They either thought on some level that I was a charity case and were irritated when I disagreed, or they weren't very ambitious and thought I'd be good company while they did nothing with their lives.
If I want conventions to work for me, I can't just be hanging out. I suck at hanging out. I need to be working. Selling books at a table is mostly a sucker bet as far as I can tell. But doing readings and panels? I can be interesting talking about things I find interesting. And it turns out I have some experience reading my work in front of an audience. Even better, the fine folks at Bad Grammar seem to be excited about the idea of developing a BGT convention presence.
So from now on, that's the plan. If I'm at a con, I'm either there to perform, trying to hustle my way into a situation where I'm the guy behind the mic, or supporting my friends as they do the same. Short and sweet. We'll see how it goes.
*The convention also gave me a lot of food for thought unrelated to my career plans. The speeches that the award winners gave were enough all by themselves to both give me food for thought and take an uncomfortable look in the mirror. You can read some transcripts here. In the name of not writing a book this evening I'll talk about them in more detail later.
http://www.hiromigoto.com/wiscon38-guest-of-honour-speech/
http://nkjemisin.com/2014/05/wiscon-38-guest-of-honor-speech/
*Finally and perhaps most importantly, there was the Floomph, the celebratory dance party at the end of Wiscon. I was skeptical. I was proven wrong. And although I had a wonderful time, I'd failed to conserve my strength prior to the event. For the sake of my honor I will not make that mistake twice.
I have a year to hone my mind and body in preparation. The die is cast.
Now that that's been made clear, I went to Wiscon for the first time this past weekend. It was quite a thing. It's been a long time since I had quite that kind of "four days feels like a month" little kid feeling. I'm not well equipped for a complete recap, but here's a few notes.
*Wiscon website is here: http://www.wiscon.info. It is the world's largest/only feminist science fiction convention (focusing mostly on books but touching on other media too), and in practice its focus spreads relentlessly like an invasive vine of justice and truth to other gender and social justice issues. It attracts a really diverse group of people, and mostly does a pretty great job of creating an environment where everyone can get to know and learn from each other. Folks make adjustments and talk through misunderstandings and try to focus on common ground without getting on each other's nerves too badly (and I know gave and took plenty in that respect over the 72 hours I was there). It's cool to see.
*Yeah, sometimes people spent fifteen minutes arguing over whether "ally" should be a noun or a verb, and what kind of a verb it should be. And lots of people put a lot of faith in the power of complaining on the internet to change the world. Prepare yourself ahead of time and it's nothing you can't deal with.
*Putting the cart before the horse a little in the name of clarifying my state of mind a little bit, THE ANNOUNCEMENT. At the end of June, I'm quitting my job to write full time. Part-time education-related activities will hopefully pay my rent and rice-and-beans-fees for the near future, but the focus will be on writing. Part of my decision to go to the convention was to scout things out and equip myself for my great adventure. Much was learned. Specifically:
*I suck at Wiscon. It's cool, I'll get better. I spent too much money on food and lodging and transportation, showed up and left earlier than was productive, and generally could have gamed the system more effectively. And next time I will.
*I suck at conventions, generally. Again, this is positive knowledge that I'm happy about. One possibility that I had in mind before I went to Wiscon was that this would be the final nail in the coffin of me deciding not to go to stuff like this anymore. I've been making a point of attending comic book, gaming, and general conventions in my area, partially to deal with the scary influx of free time from my new job and partially to scout them out. Mostly I haven't liked them all that much from a pure fun point of view, and was becoming skeptical about being able to leverage them to my ends professionally.
Going to Wiscon was helpful because it put me back in touch with my first principles when it comes to dealing with situations like this. One of my great accomplishments is that a lot of the people I associate with think of me as being only a little socially awkward. Travel back in time five, ten, fifteen years and the truth comes out like bugs from under a rock. I'm not a little clumsy. I've flat-out got pieces missing. You know how some people are better with faces and others are better with names? I'm bad enough with both that people regularly think I'm actively trying to insult them. I'm bad at approaching people, people aren't usually comfortable approaching me, I don't do unspoken cues and I often get the spoken ones wrong.
It's not a big deal. I don't have perfect pitch either, I'm good at plenty of things other people wish they could be good at. And I'm blessed with good friends despite everything, writer friends especially. I only feel bad when I forget that I have to approach things my way, which means sometimes ignoring what is good advice for other people. Randomly chatting folks up is not a good use of my time. Those friends I mentioned? They all either saw me read first and approached me because they thought I was good at what I was doing, or are people who I met because I ran a reading series. They thought I had something to offer. This carries over to most parts of my life- people that work closely with me at work tend to like me, and like me less and less the further removed the are from what I actually do. That's a big part of why I bothered to get good at doing anything in the first place. Friends I've made for other reasons have mostly been filtered out at this point in my life. They either thought on some level that I was a charity case and were irritated when I disagreed, or they weren't very ambitious and thought I'd be good company while they did nothing with their lives.
If I want conventions to work for me, I can't just be hanging out. I suck at hanging out. I need to be working. Selling books at a table is mostly a sucker bet as far as I can tell. But doing readings and panels? I can be interesting talking about things I find interesting. And it turns out I have some experience reading my work in front of an audience. Even better, the fine folks at Bad Grammar seem to be excited about the idea of developing a BGT convention presence.
So from now on, that's the plan. If I'm at a con, I'm either there to perform, trying to hustle my way into a situation where I'm the guy behind the mic, or supporting my friends as they do the same. Short and sweet. We'll see how it goes.
*The convention also gave me a lot of food for thought unrelated to my career plans. The speeches that the award winners gave were enough all by themselves to both give me food for thought and take an uncomfortable look in the mirror. You can read some transcripts here. In the name of not writing a book this evening I'll talk about them in more detail later.
http://www.hiromigoto.com/wiscon38-guest-of-honour-speech/
http://nkjemisin.com/2014/05/wiscon-38-guest-of-honor-speech/
*Finally and perhaps most importantly, there was the Floomph, the celebratory dance party at the end of Wiscon. I was skeptical. I was proven wrong. And although I had a wonderful time, I'd failed to conserve my strength prior to the event. For the sake of my honor I will not make that mistake twice.
Click to viewI have a year to hone my mind and body in preparation. The die is cast.